oz rb fan wrote:Adam .....I'm paul as well
the typhoon is a whole lot cheaper as a fly away price than an F35......yes it is less capable than a mature F35 but it is there in production and pretty well proven.
I take nothing away from what a mature F35 could do but it is now as expensive. as an F22........the F35 has to work.... the US industry cant afford it not to.......but can we afford it on the other hand?.........the F111 was the best money we ever spent but at the time was just as controversial as the F35.....yes it was proven in combat but not our unique version(and have a good look at the Vietnam history ..not a shining light for the F111)
I hope the F35 is a success.....it needs to be!!!!......abd should look cool in tiger scheme!!!!!!
Hey Paul
"Oz RB" just becomes "Rob" in my mind for some reason - perhaps I should refer to you as "RB Paul" to differentiate you from "HRT Paul"?
F-35 pricing is coming down to $90 Million USD each if Gen Bogdan's figures are to be believed. The initial lot are lumbered with a substantial amount of the development costs, so a lot more expensive. As production gears up, the cost goes down. Australia is pumping $12.4 Billion for 72 F-35's. According to the RAAF -
The total capital cost of $12.4 billion for this acquisition includes the cost of associated facilities, weapons and training. So, that's $166 Million each - not the correct figure for the aeroplane alone, as this includes all of the above. Obviously the unit cost comes down substantially removing these associated costs. Typhoon is priced at 90 Million Euro - if the Wiki figure is right for the latest "Tranche 3A" version. The Wiki price for the F-35 is wrong in the RAAF's case, as it probably includes the development cost thrown into current 2014 F-35 builds alone - not the ones coming off the assembly line down the track as the bulk of ours are. The very first F-35's are very expensive, as were the first lot of Typhoons (a figure of 125 Million Pds each?). F-22 costs would have come down a lot more if more built. Typhoon production will end in 2018 unless they get more orders from somewhere.
Lots of money is going to be pumped into Williamtown and Tindal to make them "secure" as they need to be for F-35 op's.
I do have faith that the F-35 will be all it's touted to be. Sure there have been some stumbles along the way - as with all other leading edge programs. These have and are being worked through. The development time is so long there is no choice but to "develop on the fly" so to speak. Russia and China will also face this challenge, even though the numbers of their 5th Gen fighters will be substantially smaller. So in their case, either their versions will take a protracted time to develop to a reasonable level, or they will be substantially inferior in capability. China may have some advantage here having gleaned some F-35 info covertly - how much and how relevant this is I guess we'll never know. There are a lot of similarities in appearance of the J-20 and J-31 in the F-22/35. J-20 looks like a huge J-10/F-22 blend and the J-31 a F-22/35 blend.
It's not just the unit cost to consider - it's the capability and inter-operability of the system. Also to be considered is the past and existing relationships with Allied forces. The RAAF has a very strong relationship with both the USN and USAF. The "Super" purchase was fast tracked from USN purchases - right off their own order book. What the F-35 is capable of and projected to be capable of is vastly superior to the Typhoon.
F-111, our version wasn't that substantially different from the US versions initially - only the later "digital" version would of varied a bit from USAF versions.
The first "Combat Lancer" deployment of 6 F-111A's to Takhli was a disaster with 3 lost. The 111 was a great success during Linebacker/Linebacker II in 1972/73 with only 6 lost across 4000 sorties.
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=18098
